Mind the Gap: The New Class Divide in Britain

Description

A daring, provocative and unusually frank discussion of the Gap the invisible, yet powerful, divide between classes which, whether we like it or not, always has, and perhaps always will, plague Britain. To pretend that class distinctions are a thing of the past, is, as Ferdinand Mount argues, nothing more than an ostrich-like attempt at idealism. Through fine observation and extensive research, covering issues as diverse as the distribution of wealth, the significance of speech patterns and the politics of egalitarianism, the author pursues an oft-times illusive answer to the fundamental question: How can oppressive inequality in Britain be wiped out once and for all?

Ferdinand Mount was editor of the Times Literary Supplement from 1991 - 2002. He has published nine novels, among which Of Love and Asthma won the Hawthornden Prize for 1992. He is also a former head of the Number Ten Policy Unit and director of the Centre for Policy Studies. He is married with three grown-up children and lives in London.

"A book which offers the first real breath of fresh air in Conservative thinking since the Thatcher revolutionaries imposed their own intellectual orthodoxy" Polly Toynbee"